Dallas ISD has whittled a list of at-risk children waiting to enroll in the district’s pre-K program, but officials still have not addressed why the daughter of a local magazine editor was allowed into the program before a list of eligible children was compiled.

State law says eligible children districtwide must be placed first, and any spots left can go to tuition-paying families.

The district’s waiting list of eligible children went from 319 on Dec. 15 to 171 as of Wednesday, according to district information and an e-mail sent late Wednesday from DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander. He said there are currently 501 vacancies in the pre-K program.

Dahlander did not provide details about how and when the waiting list was reduced. After he sent the e-mail with the latest counts, he did not return a phone call or e-mail to answer any other questions.

In his e-mail, Dahlander wrote that the district’s pre-K program has more spots available than children currently on the waiting list, but those families have not chosen to fill those available slots for a variety of reasons.

Dallas ISD’s pre-K program has been scrutinized in recent days after a report by The Dallas Morning News on Friday detailed information from a district investigative report and e-mails related to the pre-K program.

In the district’s report, Beth Steerman, director of early childhood education, said that she allowed the daughter of D Magazine editor Tim Rogers a pre-K spot at Hexter Elementary School out of a fear of “bad press.”

Rogers has said he did not pressure anyone in the district and would never have written a negative article about the school.

The report showed that Rogers sent an e-mail to Dahlander, saying he was upset that his daughter could not get into the Hexter pre-K program. She was accepted into the program days later, despite misgivings from the school’s principal.

Until Wednesday after 5 p.m., DISD had not responded to repeated requests since Friday for comment from The News.

DISD’s investigative unit looked into the situation involving Rogers’ child — at the request of Superintendent Michael Hinojosa — and determined that no laws or rules were broken. The investigative report concluded that there is “no time schedule” for the district to determine that all eligible students have been served and which spots are available for tuition-paying students.

However, Rogers received a slot on Aug. 25 — before a deadline for schools to place children on a waiting list for pre-K. Schools had until Sept. 10 to add names to the waiting list, according to district information. Eligible children on the waiting list were still being placed on Sept. 17, according to e-mails from Steerman.

Dahlander on Wednesday did not respond to questions about Steerman’s motivations in awarding the slot to Rogers’ child. Dahlander stated that Rogers did not take a spot from a qualified child and there are no children waiting for the program at Hexter, where he said there is still one slot available.

He said the majority of parents still on the waiting list because they are too far away from schools with open spots or the schools only offer half-day pre-K and they prefer full-day.

Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said last week that school districts need a waiver if they have eligible pre-K students on a waiting list. She said that DISD did not have a waiver.

Dahlander said in his e-mail that because the district has more vacancies than qualified children and has continued efforts to place eligible children, no waiver is needed.